Footnote:

Well, I got cranky last time, and I’m aware that the odds this rant is going to change anybody’s mind are slim and none. At best I might convince someone who still thinks voting third party or “not voting in protest” is a good idea into changing their minds.

I thought I’d “get over it” four years ago, and I regret to inform you that fascism is the kind of thing that one does not simply ‘manage to ignore’.

This time last year I had a desk job that was taking care of my bills and might have allowed me to solve my problems — that has been lost thanks to this pandemic and the economic damage that has followed. Whatever “credit” was due for an economy that largely ran itself after the Obama administration has been lost several times over.

I started providing a “coronavirus tracker”  which posted the number of deaths measured in “9/11’s” — each representing 2977 deaths. It has now become too large to fit into a single tweet on Twitter. (We’re up to 77 and counting, by the way.) We upended our airline industry after a mere 500 or so deaths from two 737 MAX airplanes crashing a year earlier, but somehow there’s no appetite for confronting a pandemic that has cost us so many more lives than that, and will continue to devour more as we go into our “third peak” of the first wave that we failed to get under control in the first place.

In the midst of all this, I am so very, very disappointed in CERTAIN “fellow Americans”. You know who you are — you’re the ones who have once again proven that “Fuck you, I got mine” is the only governing principle left. There is no shortage of terrible things to accuse this administration of doing and perpetuating — and quite simply, if all of THIS isn’t a dealbreaker for you, I don’t know if anything will convince you. (And the less said about certain conspiracy theories, the better…)

This Election Day is not the end of the story — it’s simply another chapter in the farce that is this administration. I expect them to steal the lightbulbs on the way out the door, let alone what else they might try to steal tomorrow evening.

If there’s one thing I do hope for, it’s that this is the last time I feel the need to interrupt the comic and beg you to be a decent human being.

If you still need to vote, head to iwillvote.com and find your place to go vote in person or drop off your mail-in ballot at a secure drop box. (It’s too late to mail it back — but do make sure to track your ballot if you do in order to make sure it’s counted.)

And please… even if you won’t do anything else I’m asking you to do… wear your goddamn mask.

Just like everything else in this absurd year, Hackers on Planet Earth 2020 was held online (and you can catch many of the talks from this year there)!

They also had a first for the conference — a five-day film festival / hackathon for folks to make short cyberpunk films on the fly! One of the categories was “Animation”, so go ahead and guess where this is going…

… I made a series of animated shorts!

I’m working on a more detailed after-action report, but for now I’ll just say that for starting from virtually no experience in Adobe AfterEffects, I’m thrilled!

You can see the other films in the festival on the Cyberpunk Now channel, which include some real gems (including a film with its own source code and github repo!)

What would you like me to work on for future efforts? I’d love to hear it!